The co-founder of WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook, announced he is leaving the company.
Jan Koum, who co-founded WhatsApp with Brian Acton, is leaving the company after disagreements over the messaging service’s strategy, as well as Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption.
“It’s been almost a decade since Brian and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people,” Koum, said in a post on his Facebook page, according to Reuters. “But it is time for me to move on.”
He did not give a date for his departure. Acton left the messaging service company in September to start a foundation.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded that he was grateful for what Koum taught him about encryption “and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands. Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.”
Facebook has fought with European regulators over a plan to use WhatsApp user data to create products and target ads. While the plan is suspended, WhatsApp said last week it still wanted to move forward with it in the future.
Acton and Koum co-founded WhatsApp in 2009, and Facebook bought it in 2014 for US$19 billion in cash and stock.
WhatsApp has accumulated more than 1 billion users, with one of its biggest selling points being that its encrypted messages are stored on users’ smartphones and not on company servers, which makes the service more private.
Since the acquisition, Facebook has tried to find ways to generate revenue from WhatsApp, which does not have advertising. In fact, WhatsApp’s management has been against advertising, explaining that they did not want to be “just another ad clearinghouse” where the engineering team “spends their day tuning data mining.”
But last year, it was revealed that WhatsApp was planning to charge companies to use some of its business-focused features.
“We want to put a basic foundation in place to allow people to message businesses and for them to get the responses that they want,” said Matt Idema, chief operating officer at WhatsApp. “We do intend on charging businesses in the future.”
Full Content: PYMNTS
Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.
Featured News
UK Competition Watchdog to Investigate Carlsberg’s £3.3bn Takeover of Britvic
Sep 11, 2024 by
CPI
News Corp Faced Millions in Losses by Moving Away from Google Ads, Ex-Executive Testifies
Sep 10, 2024 by
CPI
EU Faces Critical Innovation Gap, Draghi Report Urges Antitrust Reforms
Sep 10, 2024 by
CPI
Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca to Merge, Forming 1,300-Lawyer Firm
Sep 10, 2024 by
CPI
Federal Judge Dismisses Antitrust Lawsuit Against Fidelity and Schwab
Sep 10, 2024 by
CPI
Antitrust Mix by CPI
Antitrust Chronicle® – Canada & Mexico
Sep 3, 2024 by
CPI
Competitive Convergence: Mexico’s 30-Year Quest for Antitrust Parity with its Northern Neighbor
Sep 3, 2024 by
CPI
Competition and Digital Markets in North America: A Comparative Study of Antitrust Investigations in Mexico and the United States
Sep 3, 2024 by
CPI
Recent Antitrust Development in Mexico: COFECE’s Preliminary Report on Amazon and Mercado Libre
Sep 3, 2024 by
CPI
The Cost of Making COFECE Disappear
Sep 3, 2024 by
CPI